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Shopping Centers Today -> August 2003
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DEVELOPER PLANS LARGE MALL EAST OF ORLANDO
BY IAN RITTER
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| Richard Hanor |
A Boca Raton, Fla.-based developer is banking on the future growth of the area east of Orlando, Fla., with plans to build a 1.7 million-square-foot retail-entertainment center.
G. Richard Hanor bought 270 acres in Cocoa, Brevard County, about 50 miles east of Orlando, as the place to build his upscale Brevard Crossings Mall. He is now looking for department store anchors and says he hopes to get commitments from two by the end of the year. He also has a 300-room hotel planned for the site.
Hanor bought the land seven years ago because Orlando was growing fast (between 1990 and 2000 the population increased by 34 percent, according to locally based real estate services firm Colliers Arnold), and he knew that Brevard County would be next, he says. The Disney Cruise Line, which departs from nearby Port Canaveral, supplies the area with a steady stream of tourists. Some 2.4 million of them spent about $659 million in 2001, the latest figures available, according to the county.
Now Brevard is becoming a bedroom community for Orlando, says Hanor, where people shop at such upscale places as Mall at Millenia, which Taubman Centers and The Forbes Co. opened in October.
Hanor is still working out the details for Brevard Crossings, which he says will cost more than $200 million. He hasn’t yet nailed down the number of anchors he wants, for example. He isn’t sure of the ground-breaking date, either, but says it could be next year.
He says he’s also uncertain whether he’ll keep or sell the center once it’s completed.
Hanor was an executive at Federated Department Stores until 1980. Then he became a consultant on various retail projects, including Oak Court Mall, a 721,000-square-foot center owned by Simon Property Group that opened in 1988 in Memphis, Tenn., and The Gardens of the Palm Beaches, Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., a 1.3 million-square-foot center that The Forbes Co. built the same year.
The prospects for Brevard Crossings look promising, says Linda Carrick-Warfield, CMD, CSM, director of sales and leasing at Orlando-based Colliers Arnold. (She has no affiliation with the project.) Carrick-Warfield notes that Hanor’s past experience could help draw department stores new to the area, such as Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Saks.
“[Hanor] has been in the industry for a long time,” she said. “He has definitely done his homework. He is definitely a visionary.”
The area’s demographics are good too, Carrick-Warfield says. The population within a 20-mile radius, now at 315,365, will grow about 7 percent by 2007, according to a Colliers report. About 800 single-family homes have been permitted within four miles of the project, says the city of Cocoa.
“We haven’t had a lot of upscale tenants,” Carrick-Warfield said. “I think it should do extremely well.”
The closest mall competitor besides Mall at Millenia is Simon Property Group’s Florida Mall, also in Orlando, she says.
Brevard Crossings could attract many of the restaurant chains in Orlando, including California Pizza Kitchen, The Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s, she added.
Should Hanor decide to sell once the mall is built, he could find a REIT or insurance company interested in buying, she says, because such entities can afford to pay high prices for prize developments.
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